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Made in au
War Walker Pilot with Withering Fire




Hi guys,

Looking for some insight into playing against Tau with the new Eldar codex.

Tau are pretty much the biggest fear i've got playing against, with the new dex. The reliance I have on coversaves makes me terrified of them, and I really dislike facing anything that's shootier than I am.

I play a hybrid style list usually, with 2-3 serpents, some walkers along with spiders, hawks and a recent addition of a Solitarch. I have not played Tau with this sort of list since the dex dropped. My plan will be to turboboost my 3 serpents forward on turn one, maybe just moving one 12'' to fire all it's weapons at a squad of pathfinders. The solitarch boosts forward behind my opponent, hopefully hiding from the markerlights. Turn two, my guardians and avengers pop out, and start bladestorming firewarriors and battlesuits.

Swooping Hawks would go after Pathfinders with their blast/lasblaster/sunrifle. I should be able to hide them from interceptor with their non-scatter ability.

The walkers (SL/BL) focus on taking out either the broadsides, crisis suits...or should they be aiming for hammerheads/riptides? I would plan to send my warp spiders after the riptide(s)

Am I right in thinking this will be a good way to combat them? Get up nice and close, take out the pathfinders and saturate my opponent with targets. I usually like to out-shoot my opponent, but Tau will beat me at that with ease. So I should get up close with my serpents so he shoots at them, rather than my walkers/reapers.

I figure that guardians can take out anything Firewarriors in CC with ease, while my bladestorm should be a good counter to battlesuits. Perhaps rolling on telepathy for psychic shriek may be useful for my 3rd farseer power?

Any other tips? Have I thought this out well?

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Made in us
Agile Revenant Titan






Austin, Texas.

Just my thought, but I wold say tau would be one of the only times not to use the solotarch. The two of market light hits will take away cover, and then 2 s8 ap3 or lower, and yor technically gonna fail one of the 4+ invuls. Two easily killed vs tau. The whole point of solotarch is the 2+ cover. And tau will ignore that. like the rest of your plan.

Just my thought.



:Edit... I like the rest of your plan. Not the tau will ignore that like the rest of your plan. Sorry

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/06/28 04:39:07


I do drugs.
Mostly Plastic Crack, but I do dabble in Cardboard Cocaine. 
   
Made in au
War Walker Pilot with Withering Fire




ninjafiredragon wrote:
Just my thought, but I wold say tau would be one of the only times not to use the solotarch. The two of market light hits will take away cover, and then 2 s8 ap3 or lower, and yor technically gonna fail one of the 4+ invuls.
Just my thought.


You'd be right on the Solitarch. However this is regarding a tournament list that I'll be taking. I love the idea of the Solitarch, and will have to field him against Tau anyways. Worst case scenario is what you mentioned, where he eats a couple of markerlights on turn 1. Meh. I'd love to get him into some rear armour or crisis suits though

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Made in us
Sybarite Swinging an Agonizer




Charleston, SC

Wave Serpents are really resilient and have solid fire-power even without popping the shield. Be careful about your placement (refused flank if he goes first or deploy centrally if you appear to be going first) and focus fire his pathfinders into dust. Once marker-light sources are extinguished you are free to begin your reign of terror. Your real concern should be high yield missile pod broadsides. They have enough firepower to strip you of hull-points before you can blink.

Tau may slightly out-shoot you, but your transports out-tough them funnily enough. Also remember that warp spiders count as strength 7 against anything with initiative three or less, including vehicles, so you can use that to your advantage too.

 
   
Made in us
Foolproof Falcon Pilot





Few things:

1: Your first turn DO NOT turbo boost. Shoot the marker lights as hard as you can. Your serpents should even use their shield to pin or kill them. If the marker lights are down, your vehicles are much safer than having the shield up. Only the hammerhead and riptide are really putting a lot of pens on WS anyways.

2: Solo autarch can hide behind vehicles. Do this first turn to block LOS and keep him alive.He should be able to close to within 15" of the enemy first turn

3: War walkers are vastly overrated vs any army. Shadow Weavers and Wraithknights are much, much better. More turns alive= more firepower.

4:Give hawks a sunrifle. Tau are I2 and fire warrior/pathfinder units will not have blacksun filters. You can blind them. Get one hit on 3 BS5 shots and they have to make in initiative test or go to bs1. Knocks out a lot of firepower between casualties, blind, and the grenade pack.

5: ignore the riptides. Yes, they hurt a lot, but you cannot deal with them. Only thing that can go toe to toe with Riptides is Wraithknights, but they do it very, very well. One of the main reasons to be grabbing wrathknights is that eldar cannot deal with big MCs easily.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/06/28 04:55:22


"Ask not the Eldar a question, for they will give you three answers, all of which are true and terrifying to know."
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Made in au
War Walker Pilot with Withering Fire




 zephoid wrote:


lots of good advice



My plan for riptides was to perhaps send my guardians/avengers after them and bladestorm them with guide/doom. I disagree that we cannot deal with MC's easily. If anything i'd say we've got the best tools to deal with them. Mass S6-7 shooting, and a standard weapon that can fire AP2, and wounds anything on a 6.

The hawks always have sunrifles, almost specifically for when i'm facing Tau. As a unit, they're in my lists just for games againt Tau, Crons, and IG.

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Made in us
Hellion Hitting and Running






Be careful with your hawks, most tau players have multiple units with interceptor. A unit of 3 broadsides with interceptor will wipe out 10 hawks before they get a chance to shoot. Similarly 3 broadsides will average 7.5 warpspider kills if they attempt to deepstrike. At 1500 I run 2 riptides and 2 broadsides with early warning systems and would not think twice as to shooting off just my smart missile systems at hawks that deep struck, they need no line of sight and will kill 5 hawks on average, if I have line of sight for my missile pods things won't look good for that unit. So watch out for that. Avoid LOS with broadsides and try not to get all the smart missiles on you.

Wave serpents are so so so annoying for tau. Being able to shrug off those pens mean they can more reliably cross the board. If we can stop you on your side we don't need to worry about your 18'' range avengers and 12'' fire dragons. Avoid using your serpent shield on your fire dragons (if you take them) as they are more important to get across the field. If you get out of your serpent expect your unit to be dead in the next turn.

Be very careful with the autarch, just because your killed Tau's markerlights doesn't mean he is safe. SMS ignore both cover and line of sight, so even if he is hiding he cans till be sniped out. Some autarch cost 200+ points and if one gets into combat with tau it is pretty bad news, so its not too unreasonable for tau to spend a bunch of points worth of fire to try and take him down.
   
Made in us
Sneaky Striking Scorpion




ca, usa

TBH most of the tau problem comes from everything being good...not in that everything is good GG! but in that target priority is messed up. Riptides can Blast for ap 2 yes that hurts...but your vehicles will survive that...its going to be the single shots that hurt. Everything else just take armor saves on...yes i said it rely on your heavy aspect armor like a marine would...with Warpspiders only being 3 points more a model than marines and Scorpions being 1 point more, use them! hell use Dark Reapers. Load up on as much armor 3 as you can. Then make the choice: markerlights or riptides? what else do they really have as wave clearers versus you? the single shot missles are good but only 1 shot a turn. The smart missles that ignore cover are ap 4...ding ding. kills 1 for every 3 HITS (might be a little off on my maths, but close enough). Unless I'm missing something bring Armor 3, vehicles, BE CAREFUL in deployment (ie, don't put yourself in markerlight range, because you have the mobility to avoid it for a few turns). Then mess up the riptides. Those do most of the lifting in the codex. yes markerlights help, broadsides are annoying, as are crisis suits/commanders/etc. But riptides are the only ones who can large blast ap 2. Everything else yes there is high str shooting, but YOLO. go balls to the wall after you kill riptides. Target Priority is key, and using mobility.

alternatively, you can use serpents and AT to wipe out the markerlights, and then go balls to the wall versus the riptides from cover, because ya know? why not?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
My 2 cents at least

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/06/28 06:55:06


   
Made in us
Foolproof Falcon Pilot





Dont count on str 6-7 killing riptides. Also, dont count on rending via bladestorm to do the job. Tried both last tourney, neither game it worked. It came down to 2 5 man units of fire dragons having to assault the darn thing with melta bombs to kill one the other survived and cost me first place as it was able to wipe my last troop choice via a very lucky scatter. Ignore the riptides until they are literally the last thing on the board. They really dont put out a lot of damage for their point cost and there are much worse things you need to be dealing with.

Early Warning systems give interceptor. Interceptor requires line of sight. Even if the weapon says it ignores LOS (SMS), you still need it to intercept. Hawks can avoid LOS on riptides via hiding behind enemy vehicles or such. At worst, deepstrike right next to an enemy vehicle so the enemy has a tough time placing his blast template on you without touching his own units.


"Ask not the Eldar a question, for they will give you three answers, all of which are true and terrifying to know."
-Inquisitor Czevak
~14k
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~5k corsairs
~3k DKOK 
   
Made in au
Devious Space Marine dedicated to Tzeentch




Australia

D-Scythe wraithguard do a number on riptides.

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